The Curse of a Small Catfish (My story for the 'Cut' story prompt)
by Hutch-is-gorgeous
Summary: Prompt is on the Starsky and Hutch Fans and Fan Fiction Facebook page. Also, there is a part where some birds are chirping a specific tune, and I got the idea from the birds at the nursing home I'm in chirping the sound the patient call lights make.


**The Curse of a Small Catfish (My story for the Starsky and Hutch Fans and Fan Fiction Yahoo Group 'Cut' story prompt)**

**Thank you for Sparkle731 for beta reading this. A few small changes since she did this, but any errors are unintentionally mine. **

Starsky and Hutch never got hurt when they went on vacation. It always seemed to happen when they were working that either one of them or both of them seemed to get injured.

They were on vacation at the lake. They were relaxing and drinking Coke for a change instead of their usual beer. When Hutch got through with his drink, he picked up his fishing pole and put a shiny metal lure on the end of his line. He was careful not to cut himself on one of the two hooks on the end of the lure. The plastic part of the lure had been given to him by his fiancée Sunny. It read: **You're the best Dad. **The sentiment made Hutch smile each time he read it. Although he wasn't a dad yet, he hoped to be one someday.

Kiko, and of course Starsky, would be Hutch and Sunny's kids' honorary uncles. Kiko was on vacation with Starsky and Hutch. Not interested in fishing, he was sunning himself a bit down the shore from the men.

####

"Hey, Hutch. I want trout for dinner. Not salmon, bass, walleye, or crappie. Okay?" Starsky told him.

"I'm not being rude Starsk, but what we're having for dinner is whatever kind of fish is biting. But I'll do my best to catch you some trout."

"Why, Hutch. That's mighty swell of you!"

"Ain't it!" Hutch said with a grin. Then added, "Speaking of catfish remember what I told you the last time we went fishing. Their whiskers don't sting and neither do their fins or barbels."

"Tell me again what the barbels are. I forgot."

"No, you didn't."

"No, I didn't what?"

"Forget what they are."

"Oh." Then, "Kiko and I love to hear you sing so sing to me anyway what they are and loud enough so Kiko can hear you too.

"You've got to be kidding me. You can't really want me to do something like that."

"No, I'm not kidding you."

"Yes, you are."

"Am not."

"Am too."

"Am too, what?" Starsky replied.

Hutch rolled his eyes, then instead of singing in his usual tenor, he tried something different. His first time at singing opera, three times in a row he sang in his best opera voice, "Barbels are a fleshy filament growing from the mouth or snout of a fish." The tune he made up as he went along, as well as making up some other lyrics to go with the song.

When he was finished singing, he took a bow to Starsky and Kiko's enthusiastic applause.

#####

Hutch had caught two large trout and had already cleaned them, and Starsky and Kiko began gathering the wood to cook them.

Hutch had just snagged a catfish on the end of his fishing line. This fish was smaller than the trout he'd caught. He was taking it off one of the hooks, when he heard some birds chirping the tune to "The Barbel Opera" as it came to be called, and so did Kiko and Starsky hear them.

That's when Hutch stopped being careful of the catfish in his hands and suddenly shouted, "Ow! Ow! Ow! Oh man this hurts!" His momentarily loss of caution had resulted in him being injured by both the dorsal and pectoral fins of the catfish.

Surprised at being finned, he did manage to drop the fish in a small pool of lake water to keep it from swimming away into the main lake and not be part of their dinner. He also managed to drop the fish in the small pool and not in the gooey muddy sand he was standing in. Now he was stuck up to his ankles in the mud.

A catfish's fins are located behind the head on each side and on the top of the fish behind the head. These spines don't "sting" and you can touch them without any pain. Hutch knew that the pain and injury occur when these spines puncture the skin, as they unfortunately had done to him.

The spines contained in the dorsal and pectoral fin hold a venom that causes swelling, along with increased blood flow in the area of the injury if these spines puncture the skin. It was just Hutch's luck that smaller catfish are the ones that most often hurt people because the tips of these spines in smaller catfish are often like needles! But in larger catfish the spines are blunt.

####

Huggy Bear had once told Starsky and Hutch he had twenty uncles who were doctors, and all twenty had informed him if anyone is finned by a catfish to clean the wounds immediately with hydrogen peroxide or any other antiseptic, then cover the wounds with a clean dressing.

Starsky had dropped the wood in his hands and headed for the camper to get the medical supplies to perform first aid on his working partner and best friend.

Hutch dragged his feet out of the muddy sand, hearing it make a slurping sound as he pulled loose from the suction.

"Stop!" he shouted. His hands still hurting with their maddening throbbing.

"What for?" asked Starsky.

"Just stop. Will ya!?"

"Okay. But what for?"

Hutch didn't answer him. Instead, he put his painful hands back in the small pool of lake water. Carefully, he withdrew the catfish and began rubbing the puncture wounds in his hands on the slime on the belly of the fish. Fifteen seconds each hand and to his relief, almost immediately the hurting stopped! Now it was time to let Starsky treat the wounds with clean tap water from the camper included, the peroxide and cover them with a clean dressing.

Kiko appeared at their sides, "Hey, Hutch. While Starsky is at it, how about letting him treat that cut on your left elbow?"

"What cut on my elbow? I don't see a cut," Hutch informed him, bending his elbow and looking at that part of his lean, not overly skinny, athletic body.

"The cut's right there. Do you see it now?" Kiko pointed to the spot.

"Nope."

"Then, Big Brother. You must be blinder than a bat 'cause it's right there."

"Oh. Now I see it and feel some stinging going on in and around the cut! I'll let Starsky tend to it too."

"Too rhymes with booze," Starsky interjected. "You want some beer yet Hutch?- Due to I figure you might want some booze to numb away some of your embarrassment of letting yourself get finned by a catfish. If it helps any, I'm very, very sorry you did get finned by it."

"Hey. It was those birds' fault I got finned in the first place and naw on the beer. Give me another Coke, will ya? That is after you complete doing your first aid on these puncture wounds in my hands and address the cut on my elbow."

"Sure thing," Starsky said, continually winking an eye at him.

Hutch at first played back with groaning-Followed by telling Starsky to, "Go play on the freeway, Starsk." And after that, "I did a lot of fishing growing up in Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes, and never got finned by a catfish, but _-'Oh no!'-_ Because I just remembered Huggy told us all twenty of his uncles had people claim that they got infections from rubbing their hands on the slime. But wait. Oh yeah. His uncles also said there's no way to tell if the infection is from being punctured or caused by the slime and suspect that in most of those instances the infection occurs from being punctured after being finned."

Kiko then cut in with, "One of my aunts has been fishing for over 30 years and has known people using the belly slime trick to get rid of the pain of being finned and have never got an infection."

"I suppose your aunt would tell me to don't come crying to her if one of my hands anyhow falls off from rubbing my hands on the slime," Hutch said dryly, not amused when Kiko replied, "Probably."

####!

"These potato chips, potato salad, and cole slaw, but especially these trout and even that catfish sure are good eating!" Starsky said rubbing his full belly. Hutch and Kiko, who'd had their fair share of the meal, didn't hesitate to agree with him.

The next day the puncture wounds in Hutch's hands were showing no signs of infection. He was actually telling Lenny, a twelve-year-old boy the same age as Kiko, and also part of the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program, how to fish using a worm on one hook before graduating to using anything else.

Though Hutch liked Lenny a lot, he technically wasn't his big brother. A guy named Ralph was and had dropped Lenny off for Hutch to take care of while he went and did who knew what.

Then Hutch, Starsky, Kiko and Lenny heard some birds chirping the tune to "The Barbel Opera" Hutch had sung the night before.

The problem was it was the first time Lenny had heard it, and though it was a nice tune, hearing the birds sing it threw Lenny off watching what he was doing with the fishing pole.

He cast the fishing line with the worm on the hook too close to Hutch! The worm fell off and Hutch was fast in trying to get away before the hook snagged him, but then he tripped over something and although he didn't fall, the hook embedded itself in his upper lip!

His lip was instantly big and fat and his "Ow!" sounded more like "OOOOO" with the puffiness- he didn't mean to say either of the two and upset Lenny more than he already was.

"Bettertohavehookinlipthanineye," he managed to get out of his mouth, though his lip was also profusely bleeding, and his words sounded slurred.

His lip began stinging something furiously! And was just a tiny bit shy of bringing tears to his eyes. The pain was that bad. Hutch wasn't about to trust Starsky to try to take the hook out, and Starsky didn't want to do it anyway. Lenny's mother unexpectedly showed up and agreed to watch the boys while Starsky took Hutch to the closest doctor.

###

A few more days spent at the lake and Hutch, Starsky, and Kiko went boating. Lenny had gone home to spend time with his mother.

There still was no infection in Hutch's hands from using the slime on his puncture wounds, but his lower lip was still very painful even if it also wasn't infected. Additionally, while everyone else was cool, Hutch was uncomfortably hot and sweaty due to the afternoon sun and outdoor temperature. Nevertheless, he was able to put his physical discomfort out of his mind. He was determined to finish out their time at the lake enjoying himself.

Starsky was behind the wheel of the boat, and was doing just fine in the lower gears, but was nervous as all get out about driving the thing in high gear. Hutch promised him it would be fun to put it in that gear, and Starsky, trusting Hutch, found out it was!

###

Hutch wanted to go waterskiing also, but to do so he had to hire one of the workers at the boat rental place to drive it. It was a strict policy of theirs. Starsky and Kiko stayed on the boat, clapping their hands at the waterskiing tricks Hutch was performing.

Later on, the driver named Wilson, stopped the boat to let Starsky and Kiko jump off the boat and swim in the deep part of the lake with Hutch. Wilson demanding that at least Kiko keep on his lifejacket to keep the boy from drowning.

When it was time for Wilson to re-start the engine, Starsky and Kiko got back on the boat, but Hutch wanted to water ski back to the boat rental place that was located on a beach with a bunch of pebbles.

Hutch again was doing just fine on the skis and no birds could be heard singing when some dandelion that had gone to seed got into both of his eyes. At first the itching was tolerable. But then he couldn't take it anymore and furiously rubbed his eyes with one hand while continuing to hold on to the ski rope handle with the other one.

As soon as the itching let up, Hutch got to thinking about the exhilaration of a boat making a fast turn and then him letting go of the ski rope handle just in time to glide across the water on his skis and then drop in the water close to the shore.

He made a motion to the driver to make the fast turn, and Hutch would've let go of the ski rope handle in time if not for the fact his hands with the puncture wounds in them froze up and he didn't let go of the handle at the right time. Instead of dropping in the water, he was skiing on the beach for a few seconds, then his wood skis splintered on the pebbles and then the whole left side of his body went scraping across the pebbles! His torn and cut flesh looked like raw meat, too many of his bones broke and his screams of pain echoed across that part of the lake.

He ended up spending a month in a hospital that had a great wound care and orthopedic staff and had plastic surgery on his body. Including his face. Which restored his good looks and though good looks aren't everything, he was able to go back to using them to acquire information he might not otherwise get if he wasn't handsome. This information mostly from females, but also from males.

The End.


End file.
